Builder says over-55 complex shouldn't pay school fees

NASHUA - On Tuesday, aldermen were presented with a petition from the developers of the Hayden Green Condominium complex requesting that $42,000 in impact fees be waived by the city.

Previously, the Nashua City Planning Board approved the 85-unit community for residents 55 and older.“There are currently no school age children residing in the (Hayden Green) community, and given the nature of the regulations of housing for older persons, school-age children will not likely reside there,” attorney J. Bradford Westgate wrote in the petition presented to the Board of Aldermen.

Without an abatement, the 85 housing units would generate impact fees totaling $42,160, according to Westgate, who said $5,456 in impact fees have already been paid to the city as part of the project.

Westgate is requesting that the city return the $5,456 to North Concord Street Properties LLC, the developer of Hayden Green, and also waive the remaining public school impact fees associated with the housing complex.Hayden Green is still under construction and will eventually consist of 37 individual dwelling units and 48 units in a multi-unit building. According to the petition, about 50 percent of the individual dwelling units in the first phase of the project have already been sold, and about 45 percent of the remaining units in the first phase are under purchase-and-sale agreements.

In addition, about 33 percent of the individual units in phase two of the project are under nonbinding reservation agreements with prospective residents. Phase three of the development is slated to begin in the spring of 2014.

Using data from nearby elderly housing complexes, Westgate predicts that just one school-age child will live in the entire Hayden Green development. Without the waiver, he explained that the developer would be required to pay $496 in school impact fees for each unit, or a total of more than $42,000.

A section of the city’s land use codes offers a provision that states impact fees may be waived if the “new development consists of … elderly housing which can be reasonably expected not to require additional educational facilities.”Now that the petition has been presented to the Board of Aldermen, other city entities will be required to evaluate the request, including the Nashua City Planning Board and the city’s Community Development Division.khoughton@newstote.com